College Romance(Season 4)
Introduction
Onto the next release of the weekend and I finished watching the new Hindi series, the fourth and final season of College Romance which is now streaming on SonyLiv. It is a twin release weekend for TVF after Sandeep Bhaiya, and I was quite looking forward to watching the gang, one last time. College Romance may not be the most popular TVF show but it did cater to a specific demographic which did strike a chord with the viewers. It was fun and frivolous with loads of emotions that hit all the right notes in the previous three seasons. My only complaint surrounding the show by the end of season 3 was that it was getting slightly repetitive, and certain equations needed a closure. And with TVF heading the cineverse route, it was a good creative decision to end College Romance. The one question did remain though – would the fourth and final season of College Romance end on a high? Now that I have finished watching it, here are my two cents on the same.
Story & Screenplay
The fourth and final season of College Romance follows the story of our beloved gang who are now in the final year of their college where new challenges and a lifetime of memories await them. The story here is surprisingly a miss where the emotions just did not land. One of the USPs of the series was its obnoxious humour that had earlier made for umpteen laughters. Yet, even from a writing point of view, the humour is loud and unfunny with weak situations created. The screenplay standing at just 5 episodes of 30 odd minutes each also surprisingly makes for such a slog that by the end of it, I just couldn’t care enough for the characters, whereas in reality, I should have been weeping for them.
The drama opens on a rather frivolous note with the reintroduction of the characters and the equations that they share from the previous season. Yet, the writing is surprisingly un-TVF like who are otherwise known to create relatable moments. What I wished to watch is the maturity of the characters which was the USP of the previous season, which did provide a commentary of certain sensitive issues. But here, the writing did not allow the characters a chance to showcase their vulnerability or insecurity(only briefly touching upon it) which is usually the case for many students in the final year. If you weren’t going to tell me which season this was, or which year the characters were in, I would never have guessed that these characters were in the final year. So the writing was a complete miss!
The proceedings are dull with no real situation created that would evoke a sense of warmth or interest. I would have also liked a layer of nostalgia to creep in, but the proceedings are just so loud and all the emotions are buried beneath it. With the sensitive LGBTQ issue that was addressed so well in the last season is completely undone and made into s frivolous joke. After a point, I did get a feeling that perhaps TVF may well have been aware of the fate of the show given that it had nothing new to say. And so it seemed like an effort to just get it done with, without worrying too much about the final outcome.
The show has a roadtrip, a patchup, a quick round of conflict between the characters with the final act reserved for the grand farewell featuring the return of one of the characters. While was a good move for a final farewell and a closure, the events leading up to the same were unbearable to put it in a good way. If I was checking the time every 5 minutes then it wasn’t a good sign for the show. I would just pretend that this season did not exist for me. My season had ended with season 3 and that is where I will leave it. I shall miss the gang for the fun that they had contributed to but they definitely deserved a better farewell.
Dialogues, Music & Direction
The dialogues are loud and rather unfunny that do not generate any kind of an impact. The music and BGM are decent and atleast these aspects were trying to make certain scenes work. The cinematography is decent as well, the editing could have been a little more sharper as there was a drag in a few scenes. Director Ashutosh Pankaj misses the mark here wherein he fails to create moments of fun and frolic between the characters with a touch of nostalgia. I was barely going through the motion wherein even the return of a character at the end did not hit the right notes for me. And that meant that the direction wasn’t quite upto the mark.
Performances
The performances are good but the characterization with respect to depth of emotions was lacking in every character. Manjot Singh as Trippy is good but the element of nostalgia wasn’t quite there in his character. Ekvaley Kashyap as Harry and Jhanvi Rawat as Raavie make their presence felt. Nupur Nagpal as DP is quite cute but at times did go overboard with her character. Shreya Mehta as Deepika was fiery but definitely did ham her way through her role this time. The essence of Deepika was to be fiery but without expressing a lot and that fine line was breached this time. Keshav Sadhna as Karan has a good screen presence and was pretty good but the issue did lie in his characterization which was confusing in many ways. The two actors that stood out from the crowd were Gagan Arora as Bagga and Apoorva Arora as Naira. Both of them were within their characters and the effort of driving home the point just wasn’t there. Both of them were brilliant and desperately trying to save this sinking ship.
Conclusion
The fourth and final season of College Romance is loud, unfunny, disconnected and a slog thus ending the franchise on a whimper. Available on SonyLiv.